- Ronnie Dio's Early Years

The Elves Part II
Jim Tansley

In my first installment, I tried to capture the thrill of seeing Ronnie James Dio's early band,The Elves. Going to see his bands, The Electric Elves and The Elves, at the local dances (Waterbury, CT) was always a thrilling experience. I wanted to convey this sense of wonder and excitement that my brother Michael and I, together with all of our friends, felt when we would stand in front of Dio and his band mates and listen to them play. Many of us were young musicians just learning to play our instruments; being able to watch The Electric Elves/The Elves perform the popular songs of the day, along with their own original music, was truly inspirational.

The Elves lived in Cortland, New York, which was about 250 miles from my hometown of Waterbury, CT. It probably took them about 4-5 hours to drive to Waterbury. They played at
The Shack and other area night clubs for the over-21 crowd and also at the various dances for junior high and high school students. Some of the venues I saw them at included The State Armory, Hamilton Park Pavilion, and Kennedy High School. Friends of mine remember them playing at St. Lucy's School, St. Peter and Paul School, and also at Wolcott High School.

At those dances 3 bands would usually play. These bands were often quite different from each other. Some of the other bands I remember seeing included:
The Mnemonics--a black Motown band that also played Sly and The Family Stone songs; Phase 2--a horn band that played Chicago and Blood,Sweat, and Tears songs; Yesterday's Children --a psychedelic band; Foam-- a Three Dog Night type of band; and also The Wild Weeds (with Al Anderson--later with NRBQ) --they covered Beatles songs and country rock bands like The Byrds. The Wild Weeds were a great band and rather unique because they had a blind bass player. I can still remember him singing "Blackbird" off The Beatles White Album. Both Yesterday's Children and The Wild Weeds released popular singles that were played on the radio in the northeast region. All of these bands seemed to coexist quite well and their fans all got along without any major problems in spite of the obvious differences in musical tastes. I was always standing in front watching the bands play; my wife tells me that she was always out on the gym floor dancing with her friends.

The way I remember it,
The Electric Elves/ The Elves, were usually the last band to play on the bill at the dances. The other bands played first -- then The Elves played!

When Ronnie James Dio hit the stage with his band you quickly forgot about the previous bands. They always came out like gangbusters! My friend Al saw them play once after
The Mnemonics finished their funk set one night. The Elves opened up with Whole Lotta Love by Led Zeppelin and blew away all the funk fans--they were stunned at how viciously loud Dio and the boys were. It was almost laughable just how incredibly loud and powerful The Elves sounded, especially after listening to the earlier groups that had played.

Those early bands of Dio --
The Electric Elves, The Elves, and Elf -- impressed me not only for their talent but also for their professionalism. We all know what a great voice Dio has, but his work ethic and professional approach to his music was apparent even back in the late sixties. Whenever a landmark album was released by such groups as The Beatles or The Who, The Elves would learn all the songs and could perform the entire album --sometimes only days after the release date!! They never played the same songs at the dances--they were always ahead of all the other bands and would constantly surprise me with how quickly they learned new music.

The Elves always had the best musical equipment money could buy. Ronnie James Dio played a Gibson SG bass guitar with 2 cabinets of Sunn cabinets stacked on their sides (lying the long way) with one amp head on top. David "Rock" Feinstein played a Goldtop Gibson Les Paul guitar with 2 stacks of Marshall amplifiers. Gary Driscoll played a black Gretsch drum set and used big 2B sticks to bang with. Doug Thaler played a Gibson ES 335 guitar, which is a hollow body guitar similar to the guitar that B.B. King plays. The color may have been a yellow sunburst. Mickey Lee Soule played a small electric piano, perhaps a Wurlitzer, with an additional keyboard on top for an organ sound. He also played through a stack of Marshall amplifiers.

Every member of the band was an accomplished musician and could play anything by the big name musicians of the day. As a beginning drummer, I was riveted to the left side of the stage where Gary Driscoll played the drums. He was one of my earliest drumming influences because he played the drums with an authentic rock style that my drum teacher (as good as he was) couldn't show me.
The Elves performed songs from the albums that I was listening to in addition to the popular songs on the radio. Watching Gary play those songs helped me learn how to play. It was one thing to hear a song on an album --it was quite another thing to see Gary Driscoll actually play all the parts I couldn't figure out. He was the drummer that brought the music to life and showed me how to play it with real feeling and conviction. One night I saw him play Ringo's drum solo from the Abbey Road album with a sense of urgency that really surprised me, because I never thought of that solo as being such a rock statement. Gary proved that it was the feeling you played with rather than what you actually played that was important. He was no wedding band drummer going through the motions--he was the real deal !!

As I wrote in my first installment, Driscoll's drums were set up on the left side of the stage close to the edge. The reason for this may have been so his drums could be heard by the band as well as the audience. In those days drummers didn't have microphones set up on their drums; I'm sure that is why Gary played as loud as he did. He was, without a doubt, the hardest hitting drummer I ever saw, and that includes John Bonham! He played with a black glove on his left hand so he could grip the drumstick better and pounded the snare drum on the backbeat (2&4). When he played, splinters from his sticks would fly everywhere. My friend Al would catch his broken sticks and take them home to practice with.

Driscoll would start playing the set with his long blond hair flowing to his shoulders. By the end of the set he looked as if he had just climbed out of a swimming pool--he was soaking wet and completely drenched in sweat with his hair all wet and stringy. I never saw a drummer play with such intensity. He was a remarkable drummer to watch!!

Gary could play anything by the best drummers of the period such as Keith Moon, John Bonham, Ringo Starr and Charlie Watts. He would always put in his own twist or personality into each song. He had a real flair for playing the beat and then doubling up the hi-hat rhythms with eighth notes or eighth note triplets to change the beat around. He would then snap out of this with a great drum fill that would take him back to the original beat. I will never forget standing next to the stage just to watch how fast his wooden bass drum beater could go. We would put our hands on the outer bass drum head just to feel how hard Gary played--it felt as if he was hitting the bass drum with a baseball bat!

Gary's later recordings with Elf showed how his drum style evolved into a combination of Moon-Bonham-Paice with a little Ringo to sweeten the mix. He had a unique approach to the drums. Some of the characteristics of his style included incredibly fast footpedal work (predating John Bonham), innovative cowbells fills, and 4 stroke ruffs that started his rolls around the drums. His intense style was rock and roll at it's best!!

The musicians in The Elves were the best around--they had to be if they were in Ronnie James Dio's band. Each member could cover the parts to any song that was on the radio or on an album. As great as each musician was playing on their own instrument, perhaps the most impressive thing about
The Elves was how great they sang.

Earlier I explained how The Elves quickly learned the latest songs for the dances. The most amazing thing was how well they could sing the intricate vocal harmonies by groups such as
The Beatles and The Who. Between Ronnie James Dio and Doug Thaler, they could sing anything. When covering Beatles songs I think that Dio usually sang the Paul McCartney songs and Thaler usually sang the John Lennon songs. As I said before--we know how great Dio sings, but Doug Thaler had a great voice also. Listen to his vocals on The Elves single "She's Not The Same"(1969). He had a strong, high vocal range. He sang many of the songs The Elves performed at the dances. He was also a creative force in the band. He is credited with writing 3 of the 4 songs The Elves released as singles in 1969.

The other members of the band, David Feinstein and Mickey Lee Soule, could also sing strong background harmonies. At one dance I saw
The Elves perform the entire Abbey Road album by The Beatles (1969). I could not believe how much they sounded like The Beatles! All the vocal harmonies sounded just like the record! Dio and Thaler sang those songs like they wrote them! Imagine standing 3 feet away from Ronnie James Dio and listening to him sing some of the best Beatles songs ever recorded. Now that was a treat!

Not only was Dio a consummate performer, he also had an artistic approach and attitude to music. This artistic approach was apparent when he performed concept albums in their entirety such as Abbey Road or played a complex arrangement of
The Who's rock opera Tommy. One night, The Elves announced on stage that they had just finished up playing some tour dates with The Who and were going to perform a "truncated" version of Tommy. I remember them using the word 'truncated" because I hadn't heard that word used before. At the time, I think both The Who and The Elves were on Decca Records. They proceeded to play a 25 minute version of Tommy that blew me away --they sounded just like The Who!! Listening to Ronnie Dio sing those Who songs was an extraordinary experience. Words fall short of conveying just how inspirational an experience it truly was!!

Most of the technical information concerning the equipment The Elves used was provided by my friends and fellow Elves historians, Alan Caisse and Robert O'Brien, during informal interviews.